Senior Executive Assistant to Startup CEO

About Manara: Manara is a mission-driven social impact startup focused on unlocking human potential in the MENA region and diversifying the global tech sector. We identify, train, and place the top tech talent from MENA into leading tech roles while fostering a supportive and empowering community. Imagine a platform that combines the best of LinkedIn, Udacity, and a vibrant tech community designed specifically for MENA’s brightest minds.

Role Overview: To achieve our ambitious vision, we’re seeking an Executive Assistant with strong project management skills. You will be the operational glue that holds Manara together. You’ll support our CEO primarily, especially in his work as a Head of Sales. You will also support other members of our C-suite. You’ll be expected to operate at a higher level than a typical Executive Assistant, from monitoring our inboxes for important emails from investors or customers, to figuring out a system to keep the whole company on track with OKRs, to executing on the tiniest details (scheduling meetings, making sure that our executive team remembers to complete their tasks on time before an important meeting, etc). 

Since we are a small company, we’ll be excited to grow your responsibilities beyond this if you are interested! Opportunities may include managing financial projections, becoming a Sales Development Representative, or running the recruitment function at Manara.

Note: Diverse candidates often screen themselves out of job applications if they don’t have all the qualifications. Please apply if you’re excited about the role - we’d love to see your application!

• Communication (internal and external): you interface regularly with high-value stakeholders like investors, strategic partners, and our own team. You know how to write messages quickly on a variety of platforms (Slack, email, whatsapp, LinkedIn), monitor thousands of messages a day on these platforms, figure out what to bring to a C-level exec’s attention, and which information to share with whom. You maintain tight confidentiality. You build strong relationships with both internal and external parties–people trust you.
• Reliable execution: you estimate your time correctly, deliver what you committed to efficiently and on deadline, and provide status updates or get unblocked. You take ownership where expected and collaborate effectively with others. You keep everyone on track. You work quickly, managing your time based on your understanding of priorities and getting aligned with C-level executives when needed.
• Operations / project management: you are an effective operations / project management professional. You design systems that make sense to anyone looking at them for the first time. You document everything, whether it’s your work or other people’s work. You’re always thinking about how to run things smoothly & efficiently, and how to ensure business continuity if someone is out of office. You like tools like Asana, Hubspot, etc.  You know how to chase everyone down and communicate across teams to make sure that business goals are met on time.
• Detail-orientedness: you execute on a variety of tasks (issue payments, build financial models, update data in databases, follow up with clients to collect their contracts) with high reliability and few errors. You track & follow up on dozens of details.
• Remote: Experience or passion for working on remote teams

Knock our socks off:

• Experience setting up & using tech tools: Airtable, Salesforce, Google Spreadsheets, etc. You identify vendors and implement their software when it can accelerate our work.
• Ambiguity: You are comfortable with the ambiguity & change that naturally occurs at an early-stage startup. In fact, you view it as an opportunity to leave your mark!
• MENA expertise: You speak Arabic or are familiar with the Middle East & North Africa

We are a hybrid team with most of the team based in Cairo and others based around MENA, Europe, the USA, etc. For this role you will need to align your time zone with the Dubai/Riyadh/Egypt time zone so that you can support a C-level executive while he is awake – your working hours may shift between 8am-5pm Cairo time to 12pm-10pm Cairo time depending on his schedule.  We are open to hiring for this role outside of MENA for someone who can align time zones accordingly. The salary for this role is based on Egyptian salaries however, and knowledge of Arabic and Arab culture is a plus.
Note: we have a job description up for an Executive Assistant as well as one for a Chief of Staff. We only plan to fill one of these roles.